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A specification of a software program, hardware component, or system, is a description of what the system is required to do without describing how it is to be done. Specifications provide the necessary details for system developers, suppliers, users and regulators to understand and agree upon the requirements of a system. It is therefore vital that specifications are clear, concise, complete, and are free of ambiguity and inconsistency. Specifications are usually expressed using a combination of informal natural language descriptions, diagrams, and formal mathematical techniques. The degree to which formal mathematics is used depends on the nature of the application and the criticality of the function being described. In industries where the cost of a system or software failure is high, such as national defence and government, banking, transport, energy, and communication, and some manufacturing industries, formal specification is recommended because it offers greater clarity and consistency, and moreover, formal specification are machine readable, allowing some automated checking to be applied. However, poorly written formal specifications can be less useful than informal specifications if they are unreadable (or not clear), or if they are overly large or complex (or not concise), making it hard to determine whether they are consistent or complete. In particular, if the system itself is large or complex, or it features multiple and diverse aspects of behaviour, it can be difficult to capture all aspects of its behaviour clearly and concisely in a monolithic formal model, or within a single formal notation. In many cases this is because the modeling approach may be particularly suited to some aspects of the system but not to others. The widely accepted solution to this problem is to use diverse modeling techniques to specify the different aspects of the system from different viewpoints. This results in a number of view specifications that taken together make up the complete specification of the system. The thesis introduces structuring mechanisms for the formal specification language Z that allow the view specifications of a system to be described, combined and reused. Specification encapsulation and parameter abstraction and application are explored along with object-oriented concepts such sub-typing and sub-classing. Two case studies, which are based on a language-based editor and a database system, are provided to illustrate how the techniques developed in this thesis may be used.

Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote in an age of reform efforts, and the progressive movement with which he was most familiar was Transcendentalism. However, he was not sympathetic with Emerson's idealism, a sentiment which comes out in his fiction in way of critique. Throughout Hawthorne's work there is an emphasis on human limitation, in stark contrast to the optimism that characterized his time a "materialist" response to idealism (as defined by Emerson in "The Transcendentalist"). And one important vehicle of this critique of human possibility is his shrewd use of biblical motif particularly the tropes of Eden and the Promised Land, which were adopted by the Transcendentalists. Although these allusions can be traced through much of Hawthorne's work, they are especially apparent in two novels: The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Scarlet Letter (1850). Hawthorne exposes the irony behind the use of these biblical motifs by the Blithedale community (in their effort to create a utopian society) and the Puritan community, which looked to its religious leaders as the embodiment of its ideals. / Graduation date: 1999

In the two novels, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, characters show that their preconceptions and encounter with the Westerners play a big role in how they view Westerners and/or Indians who have adapted to or grown up with the Western lifestyle. Due to Roy’s family being a group of “Anglophiles” and liking the British, they see Sophie Mol being half-Indian as positive. Padma, Saleem’s partner in Rushdie’s novel, on the other hand, is less familiar with the British and therefore has problems accepting that Saleem is half-English. This difference between how the two families view the half-breeds, Sophie Mol and Saleem, can also be connected to the long history of colonialism, where Roy’s family has been trained to like the British, whilst Padma was born after India’s independence and was not trained to like the former colonists. Similarly, Chacko is being more accepted for his adaptation to English ways by his family than Aadam is by his family. However, Chacko is not accepted by the English, where he feels that he belongs, which makes both Chacko and Aadam feel “rootless” in their home culture. It is through these preconceptions and different encounters that characters view and believe that there is a difference in behaviour between the Indian and Western women, and that Westerners have a need to have higher status than the Indians. This essay shows that Indians have different views depending on their knowledge, lack of knowledge, interest or lack of faith in the West.

Feature models are used for variability management in software product lines. Instead of developing a single feature model, merging small models can be an effective solution to obtain a unified view. Since each stakeholder views the product family from a different perspective, conflicts may occur during merging. In this research, merging of feature models arising from different viewpoints is considered. A normative procedure is proposed to merge feature models by applying local rules. This procedure can merge feature models with cross-tree relationships between sibling features. Application of the local rules is demonstrated with examples.

Component based software development (CBSD) and aspectoriented software development (AOSD) are two complementary approaches. However, existing proposals for integrating aspects into component models are direct transposition of object-oriented AOSD techniques to components. In this article, we propose a new approach based on views. Our proposal introduces crosscutting components quite naturally and can be integrated into different component models.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-59). Also available in print.

Considerable evidence suggests that holding overly positive views of one’s own abilities is not only normal but may also be beneficial. Unfortunately, research demonstrating the consequences of holding inflated self-views remains relatively sparse, and research examining the interpersonal consequences of inflated self-views has come up with mixed results. In this dissertation I examine the interpersonal consequences of an employee’s inflated self-views. I specifically look at how an employee’s self-views influence coworker perceptions of the employee, the decision to share information with the employee, and whether coworkers will choose to help the employee. I find that making a clear distinction between inflated self-views and entitlement can help illustrate why coworkers may respond positively or negatively to a specific employee. / text

Philosophers, psychologists, and authors have long pondered the question of whether others’ expectations or one’s own self-views are more important in determining behavior and personality. Researchers have designated these two processes behavioral confirmation and self-verification, respectively, and the interaction of these processes is often referred to as identity negotiation. Little research has examined the process of identity negotiation during adolescence, a period during which individuals are attempting to forge unique identities. Therefore, the primary purpose of the present studies was to examine the identity negotiation process during adolescence. In Study 1, I examined whether adolescents (11-15 years of age) solicit self-verifying feedback. Adolescents first completed a measure of self-perceptions and then selected whether to receive positive or negative feedback from an unknown peer in areas of perceived strength and weakness. Adolescents desired feedback congruent with their own self-views; those with higher self-esteem tended to request more positive feedback than those with lower self-esteem. Further, adolescents were more likely to seek negative feedback regarding a self-perceived weakness than a self-perceived strength. In Study 2, I examined the joint operation of behavioral confirmation and self-verification in dyadic interactions among unacquainted adolescents. One member of each dyad (the target) completed a measure of self-perception. The second member of each dyad (the perceiver) was provided with false information regarding the attractiveness of their partner. I compared whether targets’ self-views or perceivers’ expectations of them were stronger determinants of behavior. Self-verification strivings were evident in these interactions; targets’ self-views influenced the perceivers’ final evaluations of their partners. Support for behavioral confirmation was lacking in same-sex dyads and dyads composed of male perceivers and female targets. Appearance based expectations influenced target behavior in dyads composed of female perceivers and male targets. The current findings suggest that adolescents’ self-views are important determinants of behavior. Significant implications for adolescent mental health and peer selection are discussed. / text